“It’s what you asked for—really strong cheese. It’ll bring you up in a rash just by looking at it. Denser than enriched plutonium, two grams can season enough macaroni and cheese for eight hundred men. The smell alone will corrode iron. A concentration in air of only seventeen parts per million will bring on nausea and unconsciousness within twenty seconds. Our chief taster ate a half ounce by accident and was dead to the world for six hours. Open only out of doors, and even then only with a doctor’s certificate and well away from populated areas. It’s not really a cheese for eating—it’s more for encasing in concrete and dumping in the ocean a long way from civilization.”

I looked at Millon, who nodded. There was always someone stupid enough to experiment. After all, no one had ever died from cheese ingestion. Yet.

“Let us have a half pound, and we’ll see what we can do with it.”

“Very well,” said Pryce. He nodded to a colleague, who opened another suitcase and gingerly took out a sealed lead box. He laid it gently on the table and then took a hurried step backward.

“You won’t attempt to open it until we’re at least thirty miles away, will you?” Pryce asked.

“We’ll do our best.”

“Actually, I’d advise you not to open it at all.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

The trading went on in this manner for another half hour, and with our order book full and the cost totted up, we transported the cheese from their truck to the Acme van, whose springs groaned under the weight.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at a wooden crate in the back of their truck. It was securely fixed to the floor with heavy chains.

“That’s nothing,” Pryce said quickly, his henchmen moving together to try to block my view.

“Something you’re not showing us?”

Pryce took me by the arm as they slammed the rear doors and threw the latch.

“You’ve always been a good customer, Ms. Next, but we know what you will and won’t do, and this cheese is not for you.”

“Strong?”

He wouldn’t answer me.

“It’s been nice doing business with you, Ms. Next. Same time next month?”

“Yes,” I said slowly, wondering just how strong a cheese has to be before you’ve got to keep it chained down. More interestingly, the box was stenciled with the code X-14.

I handed over the Welsh cash, it was swiftly counted, and before I knew it, Owen Pryce and his marginally threatening flunkies had revved up the truck and vanished into the night, off to sell cheese to the Stiltonistas in the Old Town. I always got first dibs—that was probably what the flaming Camembert was all about.

“Did you see that cheese chained up in the back?” I asked Millon as we got back into the van.